How District Leaders Use Supplemental Curriculum to Boost Literacy Outcomes

If you’ve been in education a while, you’ve most likely heard the famous George Evans quote: "Every student can learn, just not on the same day or the same way." This adage holds true today, when schools have the most diverse classrooms on record. 

Education can’t be a one-size-fits-all machine. That’s why more than three-quarters of all schools have started offering tutoring or supplemental learning to support personalized instruction and combat the realities of staff and resource challenges. If you provide supplemental learning, do you know which supplemental curriculum, programs, materials, or resources will bolster outcomes? 

To help you better understand supplemental learning and curriculum, this blog will detail: 

• How a supplemental program can benefit schools

• How to best select a program

• What to know about program implementation  

What Is Supplemental Curriculum?

Supplemental curriculum complements bread-and-butter core learning by reinforcing concepts and skills for students in or outside of the classroom. Although many associate supplemental curriculum with summer school or tutoring, it also includes digital programs, hands-on activities, and targeted practice materials. In classrooms, it’s the secret sauce teachers use to personalize or differentiate learning.

How Supplemental Curriculum Helps Differentiate Learning

Differentiation guru and author Carol Ann Tomilson once said effective teachers stare eyeball to eyeball with the reality that kids differ, then do whatever it takes to hook all students on learning. For instance, a reading teacher may strengthen students' understanding of foundational reading elements like phonemes or phonics and lean on a literacy supplemental learning program like Lexia® Core5® Reading so students can practice at their own pace and skill level. With this approach, the educator is free to support their students' additional needs while addressing the larger needs of the class. 

For leaders, the challenge is tailoring literacy instruction to student learning needs at scale across districts and schools. Although this may seem like a tall order, it can be easy with the right program in place—and the benefits are impressive.

What Are the Benefits of Supplemental Curriculum?

Reduced Skill Gaps

Targeted instruction using a proven supplemental program has been shown to close skill gaps and help all students learn regardless of background. For example, in less than one school year, Prattville Primary School in Alabama nearly doubled the number of students working at or above grade level by leveraging supplemental curriculum, which reduced the number of students working below grade level from 50% to just 7%. 

Student Engagement

Students who enjoy learning, feel heard and are confident will do better in school overall. With this in mind, supplemental learning platforms engage students and encourage them to stay active in their learning through games, points, badges, or progress trackers. Adaptive technology keeps lessons appropriately challenging, building confidence and motivation.

Teacher Support

Teachers are motivated to save time and maximize their instructional time with students,  and supplemental resources help lighten the load by offering ready-made, high-quality materials aligned with learning goals. These materials can increase educator effectiveness, reduce stress, and allow more time for fostering meaningful connections with students.

Identifying the Need for Supplemental Materials

Districts can capitalize on the benefits of a supplemental curriculum to support RTI or MTSS goals and develop interventions for Tier I, II, and III students. Progress monitoring can be done frequently and used to make decisions in a timely manner, negating the need to wait for midyear or end-of-year exams. 

Spotting Opportunities for Extra Support With Data

District administrators can use progress data insight to make more strategic decisions. For instance, Lexia’s patented Assessment Without Testing® (AWT) captures real-time student progress data and reports at school and district levels. This information allows leaders to see a more nuanced picture of overall progress, shedding light on what’s working and what resources may need to be adjusted. Tracking toward state standards and meeting goals becomes easier when data can be captured at any time during the year. 

Personalizing Learning Paths

With data insight from AWT, teachers can save a month’s worth of time by tracking student progress automatically, in real time, and without interrupting learning for traditional assessments. Informed teachers and literacy leaders can identify students’ current skill levels, create data-driven action plans to quickly boost support, and help accelerate learning when students need it most. 

How to Choose Supplemental Curriculum Programs

Choosing the right supplemental learning program for your district involves several steps to ensure you meet district goals and deliver results. 

Assess Student and School Needs

Begin by examining how you can efficiently and effectively differentiate instruction for all students. Consider your current curriculum, district goals, teacher capacity, and where instructional or resource gaps exist. It's also important to think about flexibility, ease of use, and whether the program meets literacy best practices. 

Find Reliable Curriculum Providers

Use this checklist to evaluate your selection's reliability and effectiveness.

Alignment With Standards

Ideally, your selection will serve as an instructional program and a key component in literacy assessment. With this in mind, determine if the curriculum strongly correlates with state and federal standards and commonly used assessments. 

Research-Based Practices

Ensure your supplemental curriculum is based on the gold-standard body of evidence in the science of reading. The most effective curricula incorporate all essential components of reading and support Structured Literacy for explicit, systematic instruction districtwide. 

Customization and Flexibility

Ensure that students can easily access and seamlessly move between supported devices. As for educators, they need a platform that keeps performance data and student plans securely available anywhere and anytime to facilitate maximum visibility. 

Professional Development Support

Does the program include convenient online, self-paced training courses in the science of reading and Structured Literacy? This will be critical in giving teachers the extra boost of confidence they need to meet the demands of teaching reading. 

User Reviews and Testimonials 

Sometimes, the best indication of success comes from other educators who have already used the curriculum. Don’t forget to check online reviews and look at sources like the What Works Clearinghouse and Evidence for ESSA.

How to Implement Supplemental Curriculum Programs

Just like students, no district, school, or class is the same. Many districts collaborate with supplemental curriculum providers on implementation, working jointly to meet organizational needs. These providers can also partner with educators for effective, practical classroom application that gains buy-in and aligns with administrative goals. 

Get started by exploring how to best address differentiated instruction. The right supplemental curriculum will help students of all abilities make the critical shift from learning to read to reading to learn.